Mary Jo Pehl

STOP IT. NOW.

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:14:07 -0600

So yesterday I got an email from someone with whom I’d had an exchange about something. In the email, he asked what I was “goaling” to do. He wrote a sentence that concluded, “... if that's what your goaling for?”

I’m all for the English language being lively and vibrant and ever-changing, but this making nouns into ridiculous verbs has got to stop. Why is it any easier to say “What if I “gifted” you this?” Or “I’m gifting you a pony.” Do you think it sounds classier? Smarter? Is it about saving a couple of words? Are you that lazy?

It reminds me when I worked at a magazine in New York which was having a special event. I was the person whom people would call to acquired tickets. One morning a woman called and told me she needed to “source” more tickets. Without thinking I just said, “Do you mean “get” or “acquire?”

I’m sure this fellow is very nice, having only been introduced to him through email, and I’m sure he just picked it up somewhere. I love that the English language is lively and evolving, but when we start verbing nouns, well, I just think it sounds like so much business-speak. And doesn’t really DO anything meaningful with the language, like create a shorthand or make it more artfully specific.

I am now going to get back to my laboratory and get back to work on creating a better word for the phrase “point-getter”.

Thank you. Carry on. If that’s what you’re goaling to do.

THIS MEANS YOU!

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:31:46 -0600

I’ve been meaning to post this for some time, and considering I’m a little overdue for my yearly blog post, there’s no time like the present!

Last year Cinematic Titanic were guests at Archon in St. Louis, and this sign was posted on both the men’s and women’s restrooms of the lobby/restaurant bathrooms of the hotel where we stayed.

I did not see this anywhere else we were on our visit; nor have I seen it in subsequent visits to St. Louis for shows and staying at other venues. So I’m guessing it was a problem at this particularly sexy Holiday Inn.

I’m guessing they taped one of these signs on the MEN’S room door, then someone suggested they ought to be equal opportunity masturbation-forbidders, and then one was put one on the lady’s room door. At the risk of being sexist, I don’t think it was the ladies who were the problem. I’m all for the empowerment of female sexuality, but I can’t think of a less erotic place than a busy and poorly kept bathroom at the Holiday Inn. No offense, Holiday Inn.

So, there’s some valuable information for you in the event you’re headed to St. Louis. I should start a travel tips blog.

CALL HIM ISHMAEL; CALL ME SEASICK

Tue, 2 Dec 2008 12:05:50 -0600

Total Husband Ron and I recently went to the coast to do some deep sea fishing. We drove to Port Arthur on the Texas Coast, and Ron had hired an outfitter/guide who also had a cabin for rent. We drove down Friday night, stayed in the cabin and got up at the crack of dawn A.M - and you know where I stand on that kind of nonsense - and put out to sea.

Now, Ron has been deep sea fishing before. I have not. Still, I was game. I really wanted to catch a shark, a sting ray, a coelacanth, even a sunny would have delighted me no end. So I slathered on my 60 SPF, wore long pants and long sleeves and wore a hat to stave off the sun. I took my motion sickness pills and I brought a few crackers so as to not get hungry and also go easy on my delicate tummy. I also had diet Sprite to help, and Pepto-Bismal tablets jussssst in case I should become unwell. I was fine as we drove out about 45 minutes into the Gulf.

My boat experience comes with having lived on a lake when I was a kid, and swimming and sailing. And in my travels I’ve taken many a sea-faring ferry. I knew I had a propensity to motion sickness, but I thought it would be no worse than anything else, and Dramamine or those pressure-point bracelet things have always done the trick. (Except when I flew over the Nazca lines in Peru in a Barbie-doll airplane and the pilot handed me a garbage bag to vomit in. A garbage bag. The big ones. Not the kitchen trash can liner size but the industrial, lawn bag size. I don’t know what he thought I was capable of. But anyway...)

I was fine as we drove about 45 minutes out into the Gulf. My friend Melissa had advised me to keep my eyes on the horizon. I was getting a headache, I was staring at the horizon so fiercely, vowing not to get sick.

Then the taciturn Steve started crunching up small fish in hand as bait to attract bigger, better fish. The bait fish was frozen so it could actually crunch in his hand. The sound was bad enough, but when I stole a glance to see what was going on, and saw guts and slime curdling through his fingers, it was so long, Mary Jo. I pitched over the side of the boat and hurled everything, which was hardly anything. It was awful.

Meanwhile, Ron and Steve are setting bait on several poles mounted on the sides of the boat. The lines start whirring and as they are dancing to and fro managing the lines, I stagger to the front of the boat to find a nook to lay down in. Ron catches eleven or twelve sharks of varying sizes, which he released.
One of them is the photo at the top.

Me? I was sick.

This photo is not posed. And this is how I spent the remaining five hours at sea.

THE COCKROACH MUSEUM

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:54:42 -0600

I think my irregular schedule of regular blogging is going quite well, don’t you?

So last week TH Ron and I were in Dallas while he was at a training class for his new job. I went to museums galore, including the Cockroach Museum in Plano.

Here’s what I adore so much about my husband: I gave him the rundown of all the museums I was planning to visit and I said, “But there’s one that I want to surprise you with, if you ever get out of class early this week.”

And right away he said, “The Cockroach Museum?”

I hollered “Yes!”

He said, “I’ve been there!”

I love that A) he knew immediately what I was thinking; and B) that we’d both dig the cockroach museum!

So I find the place and it’s pretty small, and unlike, say, the Louvre or the Met, the Cockroach Museum is in the front of a pesticide and pest control shop in a strip mall. The curator, Michael Bohdan, welcomed me and showed me a few things, like his hat which was adorned with cockroaches, giant cockroaches dressed up and placed in little dioramas (see below). He also pointed out pictures of himself with celebrities from when he was on the Tonight Show, the Rosie O’Donnell Show, The View and other TV programs. He pointed to a black and white photo of him with Sonny Bono and he said without irony or trying to be funny, “And that’s Sonny Bono, before the tree.” Then there was the photo of him with Regis Philbin. “Oh, he was so full of himself! Did NOT care for him at all!”

Here’s Liberoachi.

And then he started talking about his bad divorce and a customer came in so I scooched.

http://www.pestshop.com/cockroaches.html

BECAUSE I AM LAZY AND BECAUSE IT IS MY HEART

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 13:03:14 -0500

So here’s what I learned this week. Reynolds Wrap heavy duty foil can really pack a wallop in its tube and box. I was out of foil and ran to the store and came bag with it in hand as I declined a bag even though people are soooo anxious to hand out bags willy-nilly. It was really packing a lot of heft in my hand and I swung it back and forth, just so intrigued. Then I started thinking, What if was crossing the dark 7-11 parking lot and a stranger accosted me – would a good, fierce wallop of Reynolds Wrap do the trick? To test my theory, I took a good swing and walloped myself about the head and neck. It hurt.

THR and I live in a splendid and modest one bedroom apartment. It’s about 937 square feet. The phone, our land-line, is down the hall in the kitchen, at the other end of the apartment from my office, if the term “other end” can be used in a space that is so modest. We have an old phone and the battery starts to die after about five minutes off the hook, so I don’t take it to my office with me. And sometimes the phone will ring and I won’t be able to get to it after its three rings; or I’m concentrating on something I’m writing and will ignore it. Then, when I have the opportunity to do so, I will see who has rung us up. I do this by taking my iPhone and calling our number to see if they’ve left a message. THAT’S how lazy I am. I’m not proud of it, I’m just tellin’ like it is.

Then here’s what happens. I’ll call our home number from my glorious iPhone, and the land-line will start ringing, and I’ll think, “Phooey, just when I’m trying to call in for messages.” Sometimes I’ve then hung up so the call can go through. EVEN THOUGH I’M THE CALL!!! ME!! Once or twice, I’ve even hung up and then the phone stops ringing and I think, “Well, who had the nerve to call and not leave a message or let me pick up?!”

Again, not proud of it, just tellin’ it like it is, baby. My big worry is what will happen when TH Ron discovers he’s married such a dope.

Okay, I and my Cinematic Titanic colleagues will be at Archon on Oct. 3 & 4 – come join us, won’t us? And of course, we’ll be doing a live show at the State Theater in my home-town-ish of Minneapolis on October 25, and then a show in St. Louis on Nov. 4! Check it all out at www.cinematictitanic.com.

Wow! It looks like I’ve got a lot of packing to do, so I better get going. It takes time to fill seven steamer trunks!